Rev. Jeremiah Wright Preaches from a Pulpit—in D.C.

We haven’t heard much from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the man who married the Obamas and baptized his children. Rev. Wright preached last Sunday morning, not from the pulpit here at Trinity United Church of Christ, where he is pastor emeritus—he retired on May 31, 2008—but from the pulpit of Washington’s historic Florida Avenue Baptist Church…

Published July 11, 2012, at 10:23 a.m.

Carol Felsenthal

We haven’t heard much from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the man who married the Obamas and baptized his children. Rev. Wright preached last Sunday morning, not from the pulpit here at Trinity United Church of Christ, where he is pastor emeritus—he retired on May 31, 2008—but from the pulpit of Washington’s historic Florida Avenue Baptist Church, a few miles from the White House. President Obama, who has kept his distance from Wright since pieces of the pastor’s inflammatory sermons went viral during Obama’s battle for the nomination, was not in attendance.

I contacted a staffer Tuesday at the Florida Avenue church, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this week, seeking a transcript/video/audio of Wright’s 53-minute sermon, given in celebration of the church’s centennial. I was promised a call back with information on how to obtain it, but no call yet as of post time.

Wright’s sermon received surprisingly little coverage here in Chicago, but here are a couple of excerpts from that sermon, which contains some shots at President Obama, culled from the fewwebsites I could find that reported on the event.

+ “Take that baby, him or her, away, from the African mother, away from the African community, away from the African experience… and put them Africans over at the breasts of Yale, Harvard, University of Chicago… UCLA or UC-Berkeley,” Wright preached. “Turn them into biscuits. Let them get that alien DNA all up inside their brain and they will turn on their own people in defense of the ones who are keeping their own people under oppression. Sheep dogs. There’s white racist DNA running through the synapses of his or her brain tissue. They will kill their own kind; defend the enemies of their kind or anyone who is perceived to be the enemy of the milky white way of life.”

More to come if the promised transcript arrives.

Photograph: Chicago Tribune

Carol Felsenthal is a lifelong Chicagoan and self-proclaimed political junkie. She writes occasionally for Politico Magazine and The Hill. Her books include biographies of Bill Clinton, Katharine Graham, and Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Among her many stories for Chicago are memorable profiles of Michelle Obama and Bruce Rauner. Follow her on Twitter at @csfelsenthal.